Why show my clutter

Why am I willing to show how messy my house has become? 

Why let the world know I feel as if I'm becoming a hoarder?

Why open my house up to criticism of others when I could simply hide it behind closed doors and not show it on the internet?

Thank you Joan (How to be a housewife) for the comment you left me.  You got me thinking more about what I'm trying to explain on my blog.  I  guess I'm hoping to show other potential hoarders they are not alone.  I'm hoping to show other professional machine quilters what could happen if they let the quilting work consume their life the way I did.  Mostly it's the thing..... you are not alone.... that drives me. 

There seems to be a STUFF epidemic in America.  Ever since the end of WWII we've been told and convinced that buy, buy, buy is the way we should live.  No... that's not it.  Hmm.... We've been taught to buy cheap, buy cheap, spend, spend, spend, and make sure it's cheap enough to throw away so we can buy more.  We are a country of consumer driven economics and this leads to houses filled to the brim with STUFF.   Cheap stuff brought from other countries with people willing to work for slave wages in order to sell us cheap stuff to fill up our houses. 

When I was a child there were no mega malls or wally world stores.  Everything was made with quality and the maker was proud to sign their name on the product.  Stuff was made well enough and was just scarce enough to be cherished and handed down to the next generation with pride.   Knowing the next generation was glad to get the precious items.  A set of good china was loved and repaired when cracked or chipped.  A mother's wedding dress was packed away in tissue to be used by her daughter someday.  A bedroom set was made to last generation after generation.  Not replaced every year or two. 

These days we still want to hand things down to the next generation but the stuff we save is no longer quality...... it's junk.  We are listening to the advertisers who tell us that cheap plastic cups and tiny beenie babies are collector items.  Can anyone explain to me how cheap stuff, made by the billions, is collector items?   We've all been convinced that we must spend our money on this cheap crap that lasts only a short time then we need to buy it again, and again. 

Somewhere in time we stopped thinking about warranties as guarantees of quality.  Now days, a warranty is something to be sold to us instead of assuring us we are getting a good item.  When an item breaks we simply buy another one but we hang onto the old one just in case. 

The economy has lots of people scared too.  We hang onto STUFF from fear of the unknown.  We might need it someday.  For example; a few days ago the news was talking of higher prices on some things like flour, sugar, and cotton.  Well, as a quilter, a higher cost of cotton concerned me.  Fabric would cost more, thread would cost more, and batting would cost more.  My first reaction was that maybe I might need to order a large supply of batting to ride out the higher price.  Then I really thought about it.  I decided that the news should not be the reason for me to part with my money or have a stockpile of batting. 

In my quest to simplify my life and clear out the clutter I've come to realize there are a lot of quilters (or other people) who buy lots and lots of stuff only to become overwhelmed enough to throw away most of it and then immediately start buying more.  I don't want to live like that anymore.  I have enough!  In the past I've gotten by with very, very little.  I should be able to do it again.

I saw my Grandma Mama make do with very little but what she had was cherished and loved. Let's use quilts as an example.  She made quilts out of fabric scraps.  She even made them by machine.  What quilts she made were not finished in a couple of days so they were loved and cherished by all who got one.  These days quilts are made so fast and given away so often it's hard to cherish one quilt knowing another quilt can replace it in only a few days.  

Ok, I've gotten a little off topic, let me go back to why I'm showing the clutter in my house.  I feel as if there may be others struggling with the issue of having too much stuff like I am.  Maybe others are feeling as overwhelmed by the stuff as I've been.  Maybe if I tell my story there will be someone else who realizes they are not alone.   Would anyone else want to share their hoarding fears or stories? Write a post about your own fear or story and add it to the Mr. Linky.  (I hope I've done this right!)  Please link to the individual post and not your main blog.